A God we can trust

MOST people would like to learn to trust God but may feel it's such a difficult thing to do, especially when it comes to physical healing. What kind of God would we need to have if we are to trust Him to heal sickness and disease? What concept of God did Christ Jesus and his disciples have that enabled them to bring about so many wonderful healings? Jesus' teachings and works point clearly to his understanding of God as Love. A starting point in our ability to trust God is to recognize that He loves and cares for His creation and therefore can be called upon to heal physical suffering. God's love for us is infinitely more than a humanlike emotion subject to changing moods. God is not a super source of human love. He is divine Love, the allcaring and tender Father-Mother, who is both willing and able to eliminate any sin or sickness. This understanding of divine Love's ever-present goodness is often quite enough to heal us.

Christian Science, though, takes us even further in explaining the nature of God. It opens up an entirely new and hope-filled view of God with its teaching that God, in His infinite love and goodness, is too pure to have created or permitted the existence of sin and sickness. Christian Science engraves in our hearts the Biblical passage that says of God, ``Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.''1 With this explanation we are saved further from the concept of a Deity who might at any time withhold from us His healing grace. We come to see God as the divine Principle of goodness, in whom we can trust.

Because the Bible reveals God as Spirit, Christian Science concludes that He made man spiritual, not physical, despite appearances to the contrary. Our true being, then, is indestructible, safe in thecreator's care, and this truth underlies our ability to find healing through divine power.

It's only through a spiritual sense of man and the universe that we can comprehend the infinite goodness of God and begin to prove it in healing. Awakening to the spiritual fact of creation through prayer and purification of thought allows us to see sin and sickness for what they truly are -- lies about man that have no basis in God or in our true being. Then we go on to place less trust in a material, disease-prone view of life and instead pray to understand more of divine reality. We spend less time asking ourselves, ``Why is there suffering?'' and give more attention to proving that health and harmony are already and eternally ours, given to us by God, inherent in man as His spiritual likeness. This God we trust as Father-Mother, perfect Principle and all-creating Spirit.

Healing through the power of God brings with it a purification of thought -- what we might call baptism by the spirit of Christ. Our character is progressively transformed, showing forth more of such Christlike qualities as unselfed love, humility, and obedience. What a joy it is to find ourselves cleansed of many stubborn and seemingly ingrained sins! We then know why spiritual healing was an integral part of Jesus' and the disciples' ministries.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, points to the relationship between trust in God and the need for a clear sense of spiritual life. She writes: ``When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious -- as Life eternally is -- can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not.''2

Indeed, clinging to ``the recognition of life harmonious'' has allowed me to experience many physical healings over the years.

Learning of God as unvarying Love and of our true identity as His unflawed image increases our trust in Him and opens the door to spiritual healing.

1Habakkuk 1:13. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 495.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases. Psalms 103:2,3